3 ms·

What about other browsers? Or other online distractions that aren't related to web browsers? For myself, extensions like this doesn't work at all, and for most

by monkin 7y ago

What about other browsers? Or other online distractions that aren't related to web browsers? For myself, extensions like this doesn't work at all, and for most addicted will not work as well. Would like to see extensions that doesn't block but make reading Facebook or other services extremely annoying. For example: I go to 9-5 job, and when I open Facebook all posts are from PornHub. Without a way to turn this off, so no one will open site like that... :)

KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
What I currently do is block on /etc/hosts. But like the OP says I don't actually want to perma block these sites, I do get real value out of them maybe 5 minutes a day. It just needs to not turn into 20 minutes. But you can use /etc/hosts perhaps if you really want a less easily turned off block.
- bakul 7y ago
  use git to track /etc/hosts changes and you can get some stats out as to how well it works for you over time, or recognize patterns!
- qiyuxuan96 7y ago
  Definitely agree with your sentiment; I probably only need Twitter for 10 minutes on most days. Yes - we are working on making it harder to ignore our extension when a person's being distracted. The key is really to build a good classifier of when a person's being productive or not on a distracting site. We currently let the user decide that when we intervene.
- benibela 7y ago
  Me, too. I blocked reddit in hosts, so now I am here
qiyuxuan96 7y ago
Thanks for letting us know. Extensions for other browsers are in the works, and will be available soon. That's a good point - making Facebook annoying to be on is a solution. We currently let you block elements like the newsfeed. As we ourselves found out, however, we want Facebook to be easy to use when we need to do legitimate work, and only block us when we aren't. Thus, we came up with a middleground.
- monkin 7y ago
  Great! I really like the idea, but for users that are addicted from social media or from visiting that "one and only" website this isn't enough. They will uninstall extension, remove /etc/hosts or move to another browser to look on Facebook. I once knew a guy that beat his own dad with a keyboard when he threw away his computer because he was spending all his time scrolling through FB. Internet addiction is very hard, extensions are one way to solve them (noprocrast setting on HN is another one...). Good that someone is tackling this problem. :)
  - qiyuxuan96 7y ago
    Definitely agree with you that this is very hard and intricate - we are continuously thinking about how to balance between intermediate interventions/reminders and solving the most serious social media addictions.
    - monkin 7y ago
      Just a loose thought. It would be awesome to have a desktop app with minimal settings that would learn your habits and adapt to them. Something that will not block access but assist you with cutting your time spent on unnecessary tasks. Essentially, something that you already build, but without browser extensions and working on all system apps. Sensing if you spend time on browsing newsfeed or administrating Facebook pages, and distinguish between these different activities. Did you work for the last two hours in VS Code, and now you are browsing newsfeed? IRC? RSS? Anything other than working? In this case, it will automatically switch you over to the last used app, and inform the user about spending too much time using FB or anything other on nonsense. Automatically filtering every system notification, showing you the most important ones. Not using the computer for more than 30 minutes after 6 pm? It will let you do anything you want but notify about other activities, for example, 4 hours on Netflix, and it's almost 12am? Then it will tell you, that for the last four days you slept at that time. And ask if you want to spend more time on those activities or gradually turndown brightness of your screen, and put your computer to sleep... :)
      - 7y ago
kick 7y ago
I wouldn't personally use a proprietary extension with access to every tab, but: Extensions written for Chrome can be hand-ported to Firefox in the span of ten minutes, even if you don't have unminified source code. There used to be an extension that automatically did it, but I can't remember what it's called. WebExtensions are pretty neat!
- qiyuxuan96 7y ago
  Yes - we definitely plan on turning on Firefox and other browsers soon. As you've mentioned, there are tools out there that makes this neat.

by monkin 7y ago

KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago

What I currently do is block on /etc/hosts. But like the OP says I don't actually want to perma block these sites, I do get real value out of them maybe 5 minutes a day. It just needs to not turn into 20 minutes. But you can use /etc/hosts perhaps if you really want a less easily turned off block.

bakul 7y ago
use git to track /etc/hosts changes and you can get some stats out as to how well it works for you over time, or recognize patterns!
qiyuxuan96 7y ago
Definitely agree with your sentiment; I probably only need Twitter for 10 minutes on most days. Yes - we are working on making it harder to ignore our extension when a person's being distracted. The key is really to build a good classifier of when a person's being productive or not on a distracting site. We currently let the user decide that when we intervene.
benibela 7y ago
Me, too. I blocked reddit in hosts, so now I am here

qiyuxuan96 7y ago

Thanks for letting us know. Extensions for other browsers are in the works, and will be available soon. That's a good point - making Facebook annoying to be on is a solution. We currently let you block elements like the newsfeed. As we ourselves found out, however, we want Facebook to be easy to use when we need to do legitimate work, and only block us when we aren't. Thus, we came up with a middleground.

monkin 7y ago
Great! I really like the idea, but for users that are addicted from social media or from visiting that "one and only" website this isn't enough. They will uninstall extension, remove /etc/hosts or move to another browser to look on Facebook. I once knew a guy that beat his own dad with a keyboard when he threw away his computer because he was spending all his time scrolling through FB. Internet addiction is very hard, extensions are one way to solve them (noprocrast setting on HN is another one...). Good that someone is tackling this problem. :)
- qiyuxuan96 7y ago
  Definitely agree with you that this is very hard and intricate - we are continuously thinking about how to balance between intermediate interventions/reminders and solving the most serious social media addictions.
  - monkin 7y ago
    Just a loose thought. It would be awesome to have a desktop app with minimal settings that would learn your habits and adapt to them. Something that will not block access but assist you with cutting your time spent on unnecessary tasks. Essentially, something that you already build, but without browser extensions and working on all system apps. Sensing if you spend time on browsing newsfeed or administrating Facebook pages, and distinguish between these different activities. Did you work for the last two hours in VS Code, and now you are browsing newsfeed? IRC? RSS? Anything other than working? In this case, it will automatically switch you over to the last used app, and inform the user about spending too much time using FB or anything other on nonsense. Automatically filtering every system notification, showing you the most important ones. Not using the computer for more than 30 minutes after 6 pm? It will let you do anything you want but notify about other activities, for example, 4 hours on Netflix, and it's almost 12am? Then it will tell you, that for the last four days you slept at that time. And ask if you want to spend more time on those activities or gradually turndown brightness of your screen, and put your computer to sleep... :)
    - 7y ago

kick 7y ago

I wouldn't personally use a proprietary extension with access to every tab, but: Extensions written for Chrome can be hand-ported to Firefox in the span of ten minutes, even if you don't have unminified source code. There used to be an extension that automatically did it, but I can't remember what it's called. WebExtensions are pretty neat!

qiyuxuan96 7y ago
Yes - we definitely plan on turning on Firefox and other browsers soon. As you've mentioned, there are tools out there that makes this neat.